Jon SterlingRE: https://mas.to/@SmudgeTheInsultCat/116180303224845767
i'm still thinking about academics I know who tried to defend the idea of pivoting to *research* NFTs to me...
i was like "oh wow, ok sure"
my advice to students is usually something like: the trend is short, your life is long. research what you are interested in, and make sure you can explain why you are doing it to other researchers (and to beancounters when necessary).
this is especially important for phd students: if you do a "trend project" for your phd, it will be both out of date and "cringe" by the time you hit the job market.
i often think about how there was a whole generation of "PL for blockchain" phds and i can only guess this was the result of poor advising...
some of those students did go on to be very successful, actually, to be fair. but five years is a long time to spend thinking about the blockchain, and I mourn for what they might have done in that time with better advice.
Rob Napier@jonmsterling As much as I mock blockchain as the most pointless technology ever devised, I tell folks: “if you absolutely love blockchain, do blockchain.” Just don’t do it because you think it’s “lucrative.” I promise you, you don’t know what’s lucrative. You’re a CS major, for Turing’s sake.
Learn something on a breath of topics. Go deeper than is reasonable on a few that interest you. That’s the only advice that I’ve seen work out again and again.
Georg Weissenbacher@jonmsterling yeah, but no one can take away those ERC grants and thousands of citations from my colleagues who (unlike me) did work on blockchain…
Andreas Nuyts@jonmsterling This is honestly one of the most motivating things I've read in a while.
Martin Rundkvist@jonmsterling
In Scandyland you get your academic job on the strength of your local senior buddy network. If those people are highly invested in a trend, then *jump* on that shit.